Belize

Ryan and I try to go diving at least once a year or so. Not only because we love it, but also it keeps our dive certification current. If you go over 2 years without diving some dive companies are weary of taking you without a refresher course. We also were feeling the "need" for a trip. We had airline miles to use and planned on going somewhere in the Caribbean, but weren't sure where to go. We wanted somewhere not only with good diving, but also good hiking and stuff to do on land, and also relatively inexpensive. We looked into LOTS of places but ultimately settled on Belize, and it turned out to be perfect for us. We went for a week and half, half on an island for water sports, and half on land. So the first half of our trip we spent on Caye Caulker. There are several islands off the coast of Belize, but most people stay either on Caye Caulker or Ambergris Caye. Actually, most people stay in San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. We decided on Caye Caulker because it was cheaper, because we don't care about nightlife, and because it was more unique. I'm glad we did. Caye Caulker is a small island. It is longer than it is wide. There are 3 roads running the length of it and several running across. I use road loosely here - they do not have any paved streets, they are all packed sand. No matter where you are on the island you feel like you are on the beach, and you are never far from it. At any spot on the island you can walk to the beach in less than 5 minutes. To walk from the north end of the island to the south only takes about 20 minutes. So there are no cars. Most people get around on foot (many barefoot). There are some bikes (the main wheeled vehicle) and a few golf carts for "taxi drivers" to cart tourists around.

You can see in this collage a picture of the way you will often see kids riding along with a younger sibling on their handlebars. There are schools on the small island but many of the kids have to take a water taxi each day to the main land for school. In the picture below that is a beach side restaurant with swing instead of bar stools. All along the beach their are places to rent kayaks, snorkel equipment, and bikes or book snorkel trips, boat tours, or dive trips as well as restaurants. On the other side of the road there are hotels and restaurants.

 

 



The pace on Caye Caulker is slow. All the natives move slowly and they have signs on the streets to remind you to slow down. If people see you walking to quickly they will remind you to go slow. And there are hammocks, swings, and lounging chairs all around to invite you to do as the locals and take it easy.

 

 

I loved staying on Caye Caulker. It was super cheap - like our hotel room was less than $20 a night, you could get a lobster dinner with an appetizer, sides, and dessert for $12. The diving wasn't the cheapest, but wasn't terrible - about $100 for a 2-tank dive. I loved the slow pace, I loved feeling like I was always at the beach, I loved the people.

While we were there we went on a 2-tank dive along the barrier reef. That reef is the second largest reef in the world, so that was pretty cool. It is kind of a deep dive so the colors weren't super bright, but the landscape was really cool. We swam through canyons and saw this thing kind of like an underwater water fountain. And we were swimming with sharks and rays. You could touch the sharks if you wanted to, which we did. We snorkeled in between dives and saw more color then. We also did a night dive and saw tons of lobster, octopus, and other fish. It was really fun. Both times our dive groups were really small, which is a huge bonus. Actually, one of the other couples that were on both our dive trips and stayed at our same hotel is from Ft. Worth - small world. We considered going out to one of the more famous dive sites, like the Blue Hole, but didn't want to take the all-day boat ride it would take to do it. Instead we spent a day snorkeling, and that was a lot of fun. Again, we swam with sharks and rays, we saw dolphin, and we also swam with turtles. Being closer to the surface there was a lot more color. We had a great time.

 

On the way back from one of our dives we did stop at Ambergris Caye for a while. It was fun, but it reaffirmed to me that we made the right choice with Caye Caulker - it was much more like Miami Beach or something. We spent the rest of our time on Caye Caulker walking, eating, relaxing, and enjoying the beauty.

 

Have you ever been somewhere that you can see both the sunrise and sunset over the ocean? Pretty cool and very beautiful!

 

After leaving Caye Caulker our next stop was Tikal - which is actually in Guatemala. I believe Tikal is the largest excavated Mayan ruins and was simply amazing. Getting there was an adventure in itself since we took public transportation. We actually ended up on a Guatemalan "chicken bus." It may not have been our safest adventure but I enjoyed seeing the locals more intimately. I have a lot of respect for them - they are hard workers from the time they are small kids and they are friendly and kind. At least the ones we interacted with were. And very humble.

 

We stayed at a hotel within the Tikal National Park. It was definitely our most expensive night, but it was worth it. When we got to Tikal we checked into our hotel then walked to one of the more isolated temples. I had pictured Tikal to have lots of temples and structures, but to be able to see them all from one another or from a central location. Not so. Tikal is in a rain forest and to get from one temple to another you are hiking through the jungle. I LOVED it. It was my favorite thing we did. The temples were amazing and we got to see wild monkey - lots of them. (Those who know me well know that monkeys and dolphins are my favorite animals - so you can see why this trip was great for me, I got to see both out int he wild - amazing!) We also saw lots of birds, coatamundi, and other animals. But that first night we just went to the one temple and saw some ocelated turkeys and fire flies. We later read in a tour book that because this temple was isolated there are sometimes thieves along the trails and that you shouldn't go there at night. Glad we didnt' read that until after we had done it or we might have missed out :). (We also later learned that there were lots of travel warnings about Americans crossing the Belize border into Guatemala - I'm super glad we didn't know about that because like I said, it was my favorite!)

The first temple we went to - I think ti was Temple IV

 

The next morning we woke up early and went on a sunrise tour of the park. Our guide taught us a lot about Mayan culture that was quite interesting. It is amazing how much they knew about astronomy and such things. There were lots of similarities between stuff we were taught and Book of Mormon things. Unfortunately, it was super overcast so even though we were high up on a temple when the sun rose we couldn't actually see the rising sun - it just gradually got brighter - which was still cool. We spent the day hiking around seeing all the temples and different buildings and just enjoying the jungle (and monkeys!!!). We went to Guatemala without return transportation set up so we also spent a little time finding a way back to Belize - we negotiated a fair rate with a taxi driver to take us to the border, then found another taxi driver to take us from the border to San Ignacio, were we stayed a couple nights.

Our view as we watched the sunrise from the top of a temple - I think Temple IV

 

 This wasn't one of the temples and I can't remember what it was called, but it was interesting. You can see how it isn't fully excavated. Tikal has 6 excavated temples plus lots of other buildings and artifacts. But as you are walking through the jungle (I think we walked between 5 and 10 miles as we went from one site to another) you will see small hills, and you wonder what ruin is lying beneath all the plants and dirt.

 

The top left corner picture and middle right are of ocelated turkeys. The middle one is a red headed wood-pecker. I'm not sure what the other 3 types of birds are, but they were pretty.

 

 These are howler monkeys. They are more reclusive and many people never get to see them, just hear them. They are actually the voice of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. If you didn't know what they were and you heard them at night you'd be very afraid.

 

 These are spider monkeys. They are all over. At one point Ryan and I were at a place in the park that was pretty isolated. We were near ruins but not ones marked on the map. We were checking them out but we kept hearing stuff falling. Then we found the monkeys. They were playing around int he trees above us, pulling things off and throwing them down. Spider monkeys are very acrobatic, active, and a lot of fun to watch!

 

 These are coati or coatamundi. We first saw one when we were in Costa Rica but didn't get a very good look at it. They are all over Tikal and not too afraid of people so you can get fairly close. One of these ones had clearly gotten into so wet paint.

 

 Stone tablets and other artifacts

 

 This was one of the most impressive temples - I thin maybe Temple V (I can't remember any more.) I'm not sure the pictures make it clear how strikingly tall it was, and steep. They used to let people climb up it but too many people slipped and died. I'm not sure why the wooden staircase was closed, but just seeing it from the ground was impressive.

 

 These are actually 2 different temples - I think I and II. They face each other with a large courtyard in between and buildings on either side. One was the king's and the other his wife's, if I remember correctly. You could climb to the top of the shorter one (the queen's) - it's the one in the picture on the lower left.

 

 Some of the buildings on the side of the courtyard.

 

 More of the buildings. They think the people lived in these.

 

And some more of the buildings.

 

This was near where we were when the spider monkeys were playing with us.

 

As I said, we stayed the next few nights in San Ignacio. When we got there we checked into our room (again, super cheap - I think it was about $15/night) then found a tour guide for our adventure the next day and a restaurant to eat at (crazy cheap food there - Ryan and I both got full meals including appetizers for $8).

The next day we spent at ATM - Actun Tunichil Muknal. It is an adventure - one that can only be experienced with a tour guide. ATM is a cave. To get to it you have to drive for quite a while, hike a mile or two through a jungle, crossing 3 rivers on the way, and then swim into it. You have to swim through a great deal of it and the water is cold. But eventually you get to a place where you have to climb to higher ground, and it is dry up there. Up there the Mayans left lots of pottery as well as human remains. It is believed they buried their dead in caves, and also made human sacrifices in them. Seeing the artifacts is fascinating,but the cave is exceptional in its own right. The adventure of getting there and out was fantastic, at some points squeezing through tights spaces and rushing water, I loved the hike, I loved the cave formations, I loved the whole thing. It was Ryan's favorite adventure. I did not love our tour guide, but as I heard someone else say, ATM is so great that it doesn't matter how bad your guide is, it is still amazing!

The hike there and back

 

The entrance to the cave

 

Artifacts

 

Formations

 





The next day was Sunday, so we went to church. So, there are a couple great things about Belize I haven't mentioned yet. One is the money. There is a set relationship between American and Belizean dollars. One of our equals 2 of theirs and they will take American dollars as readily as Belizean. It makes things easy. Another nice thing is that English is their national language (the only Central American country that doesn't have Spanish as the national language.) Again, this makes it easy (at least for me since I don't speak Spanish). All the natives speak English, and Spanish. But when you hear them speaking to each other they are actually speaking Creole. So they all speak 3 languages. Anyway, if you want to go to Central America but are afraid because of language barriers or things being to foreign Belize is a great choice. Back to church. Since English is the national language and everyone there speaks it we expected it to be in English - but it wasn't. We happened to go to the Spanish Ward. Luckily a nice missionary sat by us and translated for us. After church we caught a bus to take us to our next stop - the Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center, where we stayed. The TEC is owned by the zoo. There are several different types of cabins there. I think school groups go and stay for a while and things like that, but you can also rent cabins. Being cheap we had booked our night in the cheapest type of cabin they had - one room with an external cabin shared with the other cabins. But we were very pleasantly surprised because they gave us a free upgrade, and it was amazing. I think the upgrade happened because a large group arrived the same night and stayed in the cabins we had originally reserved, and there was no one in the cabin we stayed in. Our was this huge 2 room cabin with a kitchen (and bathroom :) right on the pond/lake-thing. When I say right on I mean that it is up on stilts with the water running under it. At the front of it was a huge deck with mosquito netting surrounding it. It was so perfect, especially being Sunday. The TEC has a lot of land with some trails, so we tried walking on them for a while but it had been raining and they were super muddy so we spent most of our time sitting on our deck, reading, and watching the wild life. There were tons of birds, a few alligators, snakes, and bats. There were also other animals on the TEC grounds that we saw. After our days of adventures it was so perfect to have a beautiful and peaceful place to just relax.

 

 

 

The next day was also our final day. We spent it at the zoo. The Belize Zoo is not very big - they only have animals that are native to their country - but you can get pretty intimate with the animals (and if you are willing to pay more you can even feed them, including the jaguar.)

 

 

 

Apparently tics are a huge problem for snakes. In this picture they are de-ticing a snake, a very venomous one. Scary for them, interesting for us.

 

 

After a few hours it was time to leave. We had a guy from the TEC give us a ride to the airport and we said goodbye to Belize. It was a great trip - a great balance of land and water, a beautiful country, and a great price. There is more we could have seen, more adventures we could have enjoyed, if we'd had more time, but we enjoyed the time we were there!